//------------------------------//
// Secluded 
// Story: Secluded 
// by Innit 
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Cave:

Caves have a rather bad reputation. They’re typically associated with dark practices or as lairs to evil creatures that make one shudder upon sight. Some are even dangerous on their own, subject to cave-ins and other such natural dangers. But I’m not here to talk of a cave like that. In fact, this story is not even about a cave, it’s about a dweller of the cave. This particular cave, at the foot of a mountain, surrounded by forest holds a secret.
No attempts have been made to explore the cave, as a massive wall, with two large doors in the centre, blocks entry. Rumours exist of hauntings by all manner of ghost, ghoul, wraith and even wisp. But that is far from fact. No such horrors dwell here, in fact no horrors dwell within this cave. No physical horrors, anyways.
Within this cave, lies a town, willfully secluded from the rest of the world. This town has no name, at least, not anymore. Though it’s only been two centuries since the wall had been erected and the town locked away, the name has been lost. They choose seclusion, to live on their own, hidden away safely from the rest of the world. Life is easy, simple and peaceful here. 
It’s unknown why the wall was created, even the current generation of residents do not know.  It’s rumoured that the mayor suffered from paranoia, fear that the outside world would destroy his home, his town. From this fear, he had created laws, to protect the residents from the outside world. None from the outside shall enter; none from the inside shall leave. The doors shall remain locked at all times, except for the weekly food harvest. So it came to be that the town was locked away from the rest of the world and since that day they’ve never had an issue from anything from the outside world.
It’s time to shift our focus from the old paranoid mayor, from the town, from the cave, from the wall and the forest and the mountain to our young protagonist, a batpony named Innit. She was born to explore, to go out and see the world. At a very young age, she had explored every nook and cranny of the cave, not that there was much to explore. Every night, she dreamed of going into the outside world, being free from the cave, free to explore and find new lands, discover new creatures and even civilizations. But the laws forbade it. She was destined, by law, to live her entire life in the cave. A destiny she refused, a destiny she was destined to break.

Dream:
Innit walks up to the massive doors. She stands tall and proud, she raises a hoof and pushes the door open, revealing the outside world. She had, of course seen it before. She took every chance she could to get the smallest of glimpses at the outside world. Once a week the door was opened for the harvest, for just outside the cave were bountiful trees and bushes of every kind with all the fruits and berries one could stand. There were apples and oranges and blueberries and blackberries and strawberries and peaches. But those glimpses were nothing compared to this. Escape, freedom. Opening the door to forge her own path in life, to see what exists beyond the cave. She galloped into the forest, moonlight shining down through the trees. Soon she came to a clearing and spread her wings and flew up above the tops of the trees. She flew higher and higher and could see for miles around. But all she saw was endless forest in every direction.
She had expected more, surely there was more to the world than trees and mountains. She flew down to the ground and landed, deciding to check for any signs of life. This was a forest; surely there were some sort of animals here. She stopped and listened intently, but heard not a rustle of a bush, the crack of a twig or even the whistling of the wind. All that was around her was dead silence. She sat and hung her head down in disappointment, coming to the realization that it was only a dream. Her most vivid dream yet, but still only a dream. She would wake up in her house, in the cave.
But, there was something very strange about this dream, she noted. She hadn’t woken up yet. The few times previously she realized she was dreaming she would awake soon after. But she didn’t. She raised her head, looked to her left, looked to her right, then looked to her left again and jumped with surprise and fear. It had not been there before, but now, looming over her stood a strange and tall pony. She had only read about them in books, some have horns, some have feathered wings (feathered!) and some have neither! But this one had both a horn and wings. Was this even possible? Was this just a figment of her imagination? But something else caught her eye, the mane of this strange pony. It looked as though it was woven from the night sky itself!
Innit had opened her mouth to say something, although not knowing what to say, exactly, when suddenly the forest around her melted away. Beneath her hoofs the ground gave way to an elegant pearl white floor, with gold trim, behind her a door rose out of the ground and soon after walls to go with it, looking all around she could see the ground further away sink deeper and deeper as forests and plains and rivers and lakes and oceans and canyons and plateaus, mesas and beaches formed in all directions in the distance, and closer to the building she was standing atop, an absolutely beautiful city appeared. Her eyes widened with delight, excitement and wonder. Surely this wasn’t real, it was still a dream, but it was still more amazing than anything she had ever seen or imagined before. If the outside world was anything like this, she would do everything thing in her power to reach it.
Mesmerized by the world around her, she had hardly noticed the dark blue pony standing next to her, trying to talk to her. As soon as she had realized she was being spoken to, Innit quickly turned to face the pony next to her, listening to what she had to say.
Speaking with urgency, she explained “You must listen to me; it is not safe or healthy for one to live behind a wall for their entire life. There is so much of the world you’re all missing. The only way I can communicate with you is through dreams, since you block out the rest of the world. I’ve tried to speak to others, but they all just ignore me. You must free them from their laws and superstition that has caused them to lock themselves away.”
Innit had but a moment to open her mouth to speak before she had awoken. Lying in her bed, she sat up and looked around her room. She arose with new hopes and dreams shining in her eyes. She wasn’t going to escape one night. She was going to escape tonight.

Dusk:
The day was over and night was just beginning. Looking out from her window, she could see many of the other bat ponies already outside their houses, ready to begin their night. Preparing for the harvest, they ready their baskets and stretch their wings and legs and prepare to gather enough food to last them another week.
Already Innit was planning her escape. It was no secret she wanted out, everypony in town knew. She knew they kept a close eye on her every harvest and she was planning on using this to her advantage. They would chase her down and try to return her to the cave. This wasn’t just her freedom, this was freedom for all.
She rushed downstairs, excitedly. She didn’t have to worry about her parents catching her as she had already seen them in the cave from her window. She quickly figured out they had just let her sleep rather than deal with her begging to go outside. She was almost old enough to have a house of her own, there were many vacant ones available, but they just didn’t feel safe leaving her on her own. It was actually pretty insulting to her. But she dealt with it; she knew eventually her night would come.
She did some stretches of her own, but she was more used to flying than any of the others. The town was small enough that it was just easier to walk anywhere they had to go, but Innit flew every chance she got, she’d fly back and forth and got used to it. Another advantage. She grabbed her goggles, which until this point had no real use; she would just wear them because she thought they looked cool. She never wore them over her eyes, but atop her head. She also grabbed her black and white striped scarf, which also had little use, and put it on, wrapping it comfortably around her neck.
Innit peered out one of the small rectangular windows next to the front door of the house. Nopony was looking in this direction, but the doors to the outside world were still closed. She watched intently for several minutes, waiting for her chance, but each second felt like eons to her. The group heading out for the harvest had finally approached the doors and all pushed with all their might and opened one of the large doors. It would take as much effort to close it and it would take too long, this is it. This was her chance.
Innit threw open her door and took off flying as fast as she possibly could. The doors were much farther away than she would have liked, but this was her only chance. If she failed here, she would never get the opportunity to escape again. She heard shouting from below, paying no heed to any of it. A number of other ponies flew up to try and block her way, but she ducked and dodged each one of them with quick movements they had never seen before. The forelegs of one of the bat ponies just barely grazed her hind legs in a futile attempt to grab her, but that was the closest she had come to stopping. She made it to the door and to the outside. For the first time ever in her life she was outside. Innit felt tears of joy well up inside her, but this was no time for celebrating.
She was outside, but she knew they would come and drag her back in. In the distance she saw some light, coming from the ground. It could possibly be a village. Wasting no time, she flew off in that direction, but her pursuers were close behind. Turning her head to look back, she saw at least half a dozen of her neighbours chasing her and she even saw her parents and they were a lot closer than she would have liked. Innit opted to fly low, through the forest to try to lose them.
In and out, left and right, up and down, Innit weaved every which way to try to lose those chasing her. She eventually came to the edge of the town, where she had seen the light earlier. It seemed as though some festivities were going on. She stopped and landed to catch her breath. The air was so fresh and sweet outside, now that she had tasted it, there was no going back to the cave. She looked behind her to see if anypony had caught up with her, but none had. All she saw was empty forest. Surely they would begin searching now, hopefully they had felt the wind on their faces as she had and were feeling the same as her.

Free:

Having caught her breath, Innit stood up ecstatic and skipped all the way to the town. As she got closer, she saw the other ponies were all in strange clothing, which confused her as equally as a pony with batwings had confused them once they noticed her. She stood look around at everything with glee, there were banners and houses of all shapes, sizes and colours, there were areas with various games she had seen and had never seen before, there were decorations of cartoonish creatures that looked totally harmless that, in reality, would be frightening.
As she stood, looking around, taking in her surroundings, a curious green pony with a brown mane stepped towards her and spoke up. “I’ve never seen a pony like you before, where are you from?” He asked tentatively.
“Oh!” Innit exclaimed. “My home is in a cave, in the forest. There’s a whole town of ponies like myself! We had these silly laws about going into the outside world, but I needed to get out of that cramped cave. But enough of my boring home; I want to know all about the outside world!” Barely containing her excitement, she almost didn’t notice her voice was getting slightly higher pitched and that she wasn’t stopping for a breath. “What’s with all those silly clothes you’re all wearing?” she inquired.
Taken aback by the fact that this strange pony had lived in a cave all her life, the green pony introduced himself as Evergreen Breeze, a Pegasus pony and explained all about Nightmare Night, (though getting interrupted every once in a while by a curious Innit.) As he told her the story of Nightmare Night, most of the other ponies, though still curious of Innit, went back to what they were doing before. Some fillies had gathered around to gawk at Innit’s strange appearance and listen to the story, too.
For the rest of the evening, Evergreen showed Innit around the town, teaching her the games and introducing her to all his friends and, of course, sharing some candy and treats. Though soon night began to draw on and most of the ponies started feeling sleepy. Innit, too, was tired, despite it being still being fairly early for her, being only midnight. Evergreen invited her to stay the night in his guest room, to which she gladly accepted, having nowhere else to go. Innit had finally seen the outside world and unknown to her, so had the ones who followed her. They had searched up and down for her, but it had been her parents who had found her. Watching from the darkened forest, they saw her making new friends and enjoying herself. For the first time they saw she was truly happy and realized, maybe the outside world isn’t so bad after all?
They retreated to the cave, with the others who had gone out in search of Innit. They too tasted the fresh air, the freedom of the wind through their manes. That night, it was voted that the doors remain open. Soon after, some of the batponies from the cave migrated to the town Innit had found. Eventually more and more left the cave until nopony was left. Innit have given them all what they were too afraid to give themselves. Freedom. Innit had reunited with her parents and, as soon as she was old enough, followed her dreams of exploring the world.